sealing face of fireplace with cardboard and duct tape

Hello, I have a brick fireplace that is very drafty. The flue is shut, but there are air leaks. So last weekend, I sealed the face of the fireplace with cardboard and held it to the brick fireplace with duct tape for stucco.

Just today, I noticed the duct tape is coming off the sides and air is leaking again.

Is there a better type of duct tape for holding cardboard to brick?

Any suggestions ?

Thanks much.

Reply to
ap
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What I'd do:

Trim that cardboard into a template of the inside of the opening, leaving maybe .5" gap around the outside.

Use that template to cut a piece of 1/2" plywood, put it in the opening, and stuff fiberglass into the gap.

J
Reply to
barry

Get a set of glass doors. You can seal around them, to prevent all leaks, with RTV. Will look a little more attractive than what you are doing now ;)

Frank

Reply to
Frank

I have glass front doors myself and its still drafty...

In the summer to prevent a downdraft (and that lovely firewood smell/stink) is I take a black garbage bag cut it to fit the opening (just a bit bigger) and use a quality duct tape (3m stuff) works just fine. It covers the entire face of the fireplace and is black. I put the cover in front of it again and it covers the duct tape seam. The black bag really isnt noticable at all.

Other thing you can do is take a look at the flue and see if you can either use towels or insulation around the outer seam. Closing it well enough might do the trick for you and its tucked away nicely up there.

ap wrote:

Reply to
tksirius

Leave the tape on the brick for long, and you will never get the adhesive off the brick.

Measure the opening at the top of the inside of the fireplace. Cut cardboard a inch or so bigger, and a board an inch of so smaller than that opening. Position the cardboard into the opening, back it up with the board carefully centered, then prop them in place with a chunk of 2x4 or 2x2 between the bottom of the fireplace and the board.

Bob

Reply to
Bob F

There's some nice fuzzy 'tape insulation' you can get to put on the board that you use to block the fireplace. I don't have a fireplace :(, but it went around my pull-down steps/attic door. It seems to have helped.

Feedscrn

Bob F wrote:

Reply to
feedscrn

Put a plastic bag over the chimney.

Reply to
HeyBub

I use one of those window kits, with the double-stick tape. It works fine, with plenty of adhesive 'stick'.

It's really > Hello,

Reply to
Robert Barr

X-No-Archive: yes

I bought a piece of >> Hello,

Reply to
Bubby

The real problem you are experiencing is a bad damper that is allowing the cold in. there is an item called a Chimney Balloon that you blow up in the flue to seal it off. This will insulate the damper or even serve as a replacement for your damper and give you a tight seal that will allow no air passage. It looks like they run for about $40-$50 online. i use the clear variety of chimney balloon since it stores up in the flue out of sight.

Reply to
German Jerry

The real problem you are experiencing is a bad damper that is allowing the cold in. there is an item called a Chimney Balloon that you blow up in the flue to seal it off. This will insulate the damper or even serve as a replacement for your damper and give you a tight seal that will allow no air passage. It looks like they run for about $40-$50 online. i use the clear variety of chimney balloon since it stores up in the flue out of sight.

Reply to
German Jerry

I agree with the poster who mentioned you may leave hard-to-clean marks on the brick with the duct tape. Also, taping to the face of the fireplace puts you at a mechanical disadvantage, the air pressure will always tend to lift off your cardboard.

A number of viable solutions have been mentioned. Here are a couple more possibilities:

- take a piece of cardboard a couple inches bigger than the fireplace opening, make little diagonal cuts in from the corners, and fold the edges up to make a sort of very shallow tray. Wedge that into the opening. Then you can tape around the edges, taping to the insides of the opening rather than the face of the fireplace, it you catch my drift. That will be stronger and more likely to stay in place, and you avoid marring the fireplace face. The tape still may not stick too well though.

- stick an old pillow up the flue in such a way as to wedge it in and block the opening. Kind of like the balloon thing only cheaper. If it were me, I would leave something dangling down from it as a reminder that it's there, so you don't forget and light the yule log with it still in place. Although, this can be a good way to get rid of unwanted relatives ;-)

Reply to
Heathcliff

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